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by Marasa



Category: Deadly Class (Comics), Deadly Class (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Crying, Fluff, Friendship, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, They Look After Each Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:39:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: Marcus bangs on the cafe door. The sign on the window reads, ‘CLOSED’ in flashing red letters. The personnel inside refuse to acknowledge them.“So Lin was serious,” Lex scoffs.“Master Lin is always serious,” Saya says, her arms crossed.





	Home

Marcus bangs on the cafe door. The sign on the window reads, ‘CLOSED’ in flashing red letters. The personnel inside refuse to acknowledge them.

“So Lin was serious,” Lex scoffs.

“Master Lin is always serious,” Saya says, her arms crossed.

Apparently this is what they got for skipping school and staying out all Friday and Friday night. They had gone around to different shows and smoked and drank and been generally bad students.

Master Lin had been waiting for them at the cafe entrance. He looked like a disappointed father. He told them that if they liked being out so much, then they could stay out.

Then he had locked the door after informing them they would be denied entry into King’s until they collected adequate information on the killer at large in the area, which Lin insisted would take three full days.

And according to Master Lin, they should have nothing to worry about. They’re trained.

“I failed half of my classes last semester,” Billy blurts out as they walk down the street, no possessions on them except the clothes on their backs. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you all to think I was a dumbass but I think you should know now.”

“We’ll always think you’re a dumbass,” Petra says.

“Gee, thanks.”

None of them have money. They spent it all on booze and shitty drugs that made them feel disgusting the second they wore off.

“Where’re we staying tonight?” Petra says.

Marcus gestures around to the street and sidewalks. “Anywhere you’d like.”

Maria shakes her head like she can’t believe this is happening.

“We should probably stay at a camp,” Saya says and looks at Marcus. “A majority of this guy’s victims have been the homeless. They would know what’s been going on. We could get a lead.”

Marcus chews the inside of his cheek for a moment. He’s hesitant to return to that part of his life. He’s done a good job thus far of not thinking about life before King’s but this might stir up all that terrible shit he’s been trying to forget.

He relents; the sooner they get this done, the sooner they can get back to King’s Dominion.

“There’s a camp up here,” he murmurs.

Saya nods. She slides her hand up and down his back, sensing his nervous uncertainty.

The streets are just a little different now. It’s manageable when they all come out for a few hours but there is no going home tonight or for the next two nights.

Lex slides up beside him. He squints at the brightness of midday as he scans the deteriorating streets. “Brings back memories.”

Marcus furrows his brow. “For me?”

“Well yeah,” Lex says, “but me too. I used to live on eighth. Behind the convenience store.”

“No shit,” Marcus says, shock and awe coloring his voice.

“Certified Rat, mate.”

He hadn’t really thought about the part of his fellow Rats’ pasts between their horrific home lives and King’s. He makes a mental note to ask them about it later when they’re all in a place more private that the street.

Marcus offers his own piece of the past.

“I lived in a camp by the river bank originally,” he says. “I moved to another one not too long after. That’s where Saya found me.”

“I never did good in camps,” Lex says. “Too many people around. Made me uneasy.”

“Are you giving me a heads up?”

He shrugs. “I feel a little better because I’m not alone. Less chance of anyone fucking with us if we’re a group.”

“I won’t let anyone fuck with you, dude,” Marcus assures with a smile.

Lex rolls his eyes. “What a gentleman you are.”

They nudge shoulders affectionately.

Neither of them have stayed here by the bridge. They find a spot a little more private on the edge of the camp, not too far to collect information.

They split up and wander around for the next hour. Lex only lasts by himself for about five minutes before he’s wordlessly at Marcus’ side, following beside him like a shadow.

Marcus suspects Lex might have a bit of social anxiety in new places and with new people.

Come night, they share their findings when they’ve met up at their designated spot. There’s not a considerable breakthrough but at least they have a vague description of the guy.

The cold, hard ground isn’t new to Marcus. It is very new for most of his friends.

Their faces scrunch up as they try to get comfortable where they’ve decided to lay down on the pavement. They adjust and then readjust and then huff short breaths.

“Billy,” Marcus says to the punk resting his head on the pavement, “put your arm under your head. It’ll feel better, trust me.”

Billy does trust Marcus, so he puts an arm between the side of his face and the ground. He smiles at Marcus in thanks.

Willie lays close by on his back and his arms folded up under his head as well. Saya has followed Lex’s lead and uses her jacket under her head as a pillow. She shares it with Maria, Lex sharing his with Petra.

“You comfortable, love?” Lex asks.

“Is that a joke?” Petra grumbles.

“Not a very funny one, I guess.”

Luckily it won’t be dropping below seventy tonight. Their individual conversations drift off and then so do they.

Marcus is the last to nod off as he keeps watch over his friends for a little while longer. He takes solace in the fact that those in camp have said there hasn’t been a single death here.

Marcus promises those around him and himself that he’ll protect him with everything in his power.

* * *

Marcus wakes just as the sun is rising. The birds are chirping. His friends are sleeping with expressions of slight discomfort on their faces.

He pops his sore joints and then goes around shaking them gently and rubbing his hand up and down their arms.

“We have to get up,” he whispers. “Get up, get up.”

Saya blinks awake blearily. “What?”

“The soup kitchen a few blocks from here is giving out breakfast in forty-five minutes,” he explains as he strokes the side of Billy’s head to wake him. “We need to go now.”

“How do you know, man?” Willie says as he scrubs at his eyes, pissed at being woken up so early.

Marcus blinks.

“Right...” Willie sighs.

The line’s already long when they show up. It worries Marcus because he knows how difficult it is to get in, how no meal is ever guaranteed when you’re living on the street.

That’s why he isn’t particularly surprised when the line cuts off just behind him.

All of them have managed to get in but Billy and Petra are behind him and now Marcus is really regretting not insisting they be in front of him.

They look unsure of what to do, angling themselves a little toward the door but Marcus tells them to stay and expertly nabs two empty trays from beside the counter.

As long as they're holding a tray, they can’t be kicked out until nine.

Marcus has Petra and Billy sit on either side of him at the long metal table. He tears his own toast in half. He places one piece each on their empty trays, then provides them scrambled eggs and a piece of bacon each. He declares his small styrofoam cup of coffee the three of theirs now.

Remaining on his own tray is nothing more than a spoonful of eggs and a tiny clump of jam.

“Marcus-“ Petra starts.

“It’s okay,” he says, “‘cause we’ll have dinner later. I’ll eat then. Just… eat.” He turns to give her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Petra.”

She holds her hand over his where it rests on her thigh.

Marcus can’t really tell why they’re so quiet as they eat. It’s probably the exhaustion after an uncomfortable sleep or maybe it’s because they’re so hungry.

There’s also a very good chance that it’s because they hate this. He gets it.

This is familiar to him but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier. Actually, it’s a little harder this time around.

Because as much as he loves them, he doesn’t think he would have been able to survive with them back then.

The extra eyes would have worked great for protection but extra eyes meant extra mouths and extra worries.

Back then it had been simpler.

He had to do this without them.

Willie strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to him. He asks him a few questions about life in the neighboring camp.

Saya watches carefully out of the corner of her eye, surely making mental notes of the intel in between stories of how much the man misses his family.

They’re not here anymore. He’ll never forget them.

Petra squeezes Marcus’ fingers. Marcus leans over and brushes a light kiss to her temple.

“People are disappearing only early morning,” Willie says when they’re walking down the sidewalk. “3, 4am. The guy I was talking to said he knows two people who disappeared and winded up dead. They were living alone by the river.”

And that scares Marcus for many reasons.

He hates that anyone would be evil enough to murder innocent people but then there’s the other fact that this hits close to home. He used to live by the river. Lex used to live alone. If the timing had been different, that would’ve been them.

Lex must be thinking the same thing because when Marcus looks over at him, his brow is furrowed in worry and deep thought. Marcus recognizes it as him remembering the past.

He knows; he does it a lot himself.

Lex makes no objection when Marcus bumps his shoulder with his own and swings his hand just so their fingers hook lightly. It’s a quiet offer, a reminder that he’s here with him and to reach out if he needs to.

Lex properly intertwines their fingers once they’ve turned the corner and are in the privacy of an empty street in the early morning.

They spend the day collecting intelligence. They talk to the locals and listen to their concerns. Saya doesn’t have paper or a pen so she recites the facts they provide quietly to herself like a prayer or a song.

Later that afternoon, they run by a church food pantry to pick up seven toothbrushes, one small toothpaste and a half a stick of deodorant. The woman working for the church there smiles at them and asks them if they need canned food.

Marcus’ immediate instinct is to say yes but he stops himself because they’ll only be out here a few days and he’s sure someone else could really use that.

They’re just about to leave but they have to wait an extra minute because the church lady has her hand on Lex’s leather-clad shoulder as she prays over him.

“She caught my inverted cross tattoo,” he explains later when they’re brushing their teeth in a library bathroom. “Whatever helps her sleep at night.”

It’s just a little cooler that night. Billy shivers on the pavement. The sight has Marcus’ heart twisting with a natural instinct to protect and provide for those he cares about.

Marcus wraps his arms around Billy and pulls him to his chest so he’s tucked safely under his chin. Billy responds almost immediately to his body heat; his shivers calm in severity but his nose is still cold in the hollow of Marcus’ throat.

Marcus shuts his eyes and rubs up and down his back steadily until they’re both asleep.

It’s warmer the next morning. The sun streams down upon them and their battle with the cold is long done. They soak in the sunshine and fall into the deepest sleep they’ve had thus far.

Maria and Saya hold each other, their faces lax as they sleep soundly. Willie plasters himself against Saya’s back, his arm thrown protectively over the two girls.

Lex lays on his back with his arm wrapped tightly around Petra’s shoulders where she’s tucked into his side. Her fingers are curled loosely over Lex’s heart, Lex’s jacket draped over her like a leather blanket.

Billy has rolled away from Marcus sometime during the night but he’s now warm and comfortable in the sun, his arm folded under his head. 

Marcus watches over his friends in the quiet of early morning. 

It’s kinda surprising how fast he fell back into the swing of life out here. Well, maybe not that surprising.

A part of Marcus will always feel a familiarity to life out here. He did it for so long it would be hard not to feel that way.

Hell, the first morning out here, his internal clock fired up and he was waking at 6:50 am sharp all over again.

That doesn’t mean that he yearns to return to it but he acknowledges that it wouldn’t be hard to acclimate once again.

Maybe that was a bittersweet blessing.

King’s Dominion was a good idea but surely it couldn’t last forever. Not much good had ever lasted in Marcus’ life.

Friends, family; they all left him.

Marcus exhales through his nose. He checks his watch.

_Shit!_

There’s no way they’re making it to breakfast unless they leave right now.

But his friends all look so exhausted and hunger is nonexistent in sleep.

Marcus decides to leave them be and get there early for dinner. He has a bag of chips from the church that he can give them. He doesn’t need to eat; he can wait.

“How late is it?” Maria asks when she wakes.

The others begin waking too. They stretch their aching muscles and sit up, still yawning and tired. 

“We missed breakfast,” Marcus says, “but I have some chips you can all have.”

The birds sing. The sun shines. His friends all stare at him sadly.

Marcus is about to apologize for not waking up early enough and not waking them up once he did.

He falters when he sees the tears gathering in Maria’s eyes.

Marcus’ face melts into an expression of intense compassion. He’s already starting to reach out to her and mouth a desperate plea for her to not cry.

“Maria, it’s okay, we’ll make it to dinner. I know it sucks. I’m so sorry-“

“No,” she says, and Saya wraps an arm around her waist. “It’s not that. It’s…You had to do this. You had to live this day in and day out.” She turns to Lex. “You did too. And you shouldn’t have had to. It’s not fair. This is terrible.”

She wipes her eyes with a sweep of her fingers.

Marcus leans over and hugs her.

“I’m okay,” he says, a gentle smile on his face because he’ll never get used to the warmth that fills his chest whenever he’s reminded that he’s loved and cared about. “That part of my life is over. And I’m so thankful. I’m okay now because I’m here with all of you.”

Maria nods. Marcus smiles.

“This is only temporary,” he says. “We’ll be back at King’s tomorrow. We’ll be okay. I promise.”

But there’s something in his words that makes it also sound like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact.

They’re more than ready to return to King’s early the next morning.

Lex is beside him again as they make the walk back. Marcus is glad all of this is over but still, a part of him is downtrodden with the thought of returning to the street somehow without all of them.

“Marcus,” Lex says and it’s like he can read his mind, although more likely it is the conflicted expression on his face. “You don’t have to come back to this.”

Marcus scoffs. He tries to sound unaffected. “I know.”

“Marcus,” Lex insists, because he knows him so well, “we wouldn’t let you come back to this. We’re not leaving you.”

And then Marcus tears up and Lex wraps an arm around him as Marcus whispers into his shoulder, ‘Thank you, thank you.’

This time the cafe sign reads, ‘OPEN’ when they get to the front. The personnel all nod to them as they enter the door.

They do not continue to the back but all slide into a nearby booth. A server with a machete hidden beneath her apron serves them plate after plate of breakfast foods. 

The seven are much too hungry to speak but when they do, it’s to make plans for next weekend at the soup kitchen. 

Beneath the table, Willie’s ankle hooks with Marcus’. Billy burps. Maria holds his hand while Lex, Petra and Saya argue about whether French toast or regular toast is superior. 

Marcus smiles because this, this is home and will always be his home as long as they are all here together. 


End file.
